


Garrus in the Vents

by hayllyn



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-05
Updated: 2012-12-05
Packaged: 2017-11-20 10:11:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/584221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hayllyn/pseuds/hayllyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Shepard invites Garrus to yet another event honoring Blasto, Garrus finds it hard to keep his attention on the actual ceremony.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Garrus in the Vents

He’d really only reluctantly agreed to go to Blasto’s ceremony as a favor to Shepard.  Though Garrus had no interest in whether Blasto, but Shepard had some strange obsession with the Hanar.  It sent her into laughing fits to picture the Hanar armed with as many guns as his limbs could handle, taking out a team of charging Krogan.  Shepard always said it was like something out of a comic, and Garrus took her word for it.    
Besides, if Shepard wanted to travel halfway across the galaxy to meet her favorite jellyfish, then who was Garrus to disagree?  
Regret set in about 3 minutes into the ceremony.  The lineup of speakers, with a few exceptions, were largely Hanar, and Garrus was suddenly struck with the realization that he’d have 3 more hours to put up with this.  
Typically, ‘easily distracted’ wasn’t a phrase used to describe Garrus Vakarian.  But drop him in a room full of hundreds of Hanar, a few dignitaries, the Council, and make him wear something other than his armor and, well, you’ve got a recipe for boredom.  
Garrus looked up at he ceiling, which was one of those ancient architecture types that was all open- the beams and vents exposed as some sort of 'expression' about rejecting societies need to hide things away- something stupid like that.  It didn't look sleek, or sharp, as they'd thought.  It just looked ridiculous.    
You know where they have ceilings like this?  Children's gymnasiums.    
You know where they should never have them?  Miltary buildings.   
In fact, Garrus could see at least ten possible vantage points for a decent assassination.  An assignment here would be like a dream come true for Krios.   
"Krios."  Garrus hadn't realized that he'd said the name aloud, nor that he was nodding his head, until Alenko looked over at him with a very confused look.    
Garrus gave the spectre a blank look, then continued to scope the ceiling's layout.  He was, of course, completely oblivious to the fact that he'd just said "Krios" aloud right when the Hanar had mentioned "Finding someone special worth fighting for."  
Alenko would give him hell for it later, of course.  But Vakarian was already determined to show the drell up, even if he had no plans of telling Thane what he’d gotten up to.  Anything Krios could do, surely Vakarian could do better, and in a more devastatingly handsome manner.  He leaned over to Alenko.    
"I'm gonna go find the bathroom," he said quietly.   
"It's probably in the same place it was when we used it an hour ago."  
"Ha-ha.  Great.  I'm going to go use it, ass."  Garrus stood, trying not to draw attention to himself as he made his way form the row.  Luckily as he wasn't wearing his armor, it was much easier for him to keep a low profile.  
As soon as he left the large hall, he set out to find a maintenance shaft of some kind- anywhere with access into the vents.  His first challenge would be to find a way into the vents.  The second challenge would be figuring out how to find his way back out when he was finished.  
He walked into the bathroom and chose the far stall, hoping that there'd be a vent of some kind in the final stall.  As soon as he pushed the door open and looked in, he nodded to himself and said, "Good work, Vakarian.  Good instincts."   
Behind him, a Batarian slowly turned around, silently judging this Turian who was congratulating himself on his choice of a bathroom stall.  What instincts had to do with taking a crap, the Batarian would never know.  
Garrus closed and locked the stall door behind him.  From his pocket, he pulled a small utility knife, then used it to remove the screws securing the vent in place.  Once it was off, he quietly placed it on the back of the toilet, then surveyed the shaft opening.  It was a bit smaller than he expected - it would be a tight fit.  
‘Probably why Krios is so at home in them,’ he thought to himself with a chuckle. ‘That joke didn’t even make sense to me.’    
He sighed and dropped to his knees to make sure that no one else was in the room.  Once he’d verified his solitude, he grinned and got to his feet, leaning into the shaft.  
First bump in the road: Turian crests were not decently shaped for forcing oneself headfirst into things.    
Garrus rearranged his body once, twice, until he finally was able to get his upper body into the opening of the shaft.  His feet pushed off against the wall of the bathroom stall behind him, and Garrus was in.  
“That wasn’t so bad,” he reassured himself as he began to crawl on his elbows.  He wasn’t sure where he was going, or where he’d end up.  He actually really didn’t have a plan which, in retrospect, really wasn’t the best way to handle the situation.  Garrus crawled a few more metres, coming to a four way intersection and dip in the ventilation shaft.  He looked down, straight down, one-hundred metres or more, and decided not to take that route.  He looked up, and decided that wasn’t a good idea either.  Going up higher just meant he could fall farther.  He’d just have to find a way to get across the pit of death.  
Second bump in the road: In ventilation shafts, there is no room to get a running jump.  
He wasn’t willing to let this get the best of him so soon in his mission.  Garrus slowly inched himself out across the opening, which was nearly half his height in distance across.  He braced himself on the ledge and shimmied with his hands, slowly but surely reaching the other side of the shaft.  He heaved his body and managed to get his chest across the ravine. All that was left was his legs, which were… kicking wildly?    
“Dammit!” Garrus said as he kicked the shaft wall, causing a BANG that echoed loudly through the empty space.  Garrus sighed and planted his feet against the wall and pushed.  His feet were beginning to develop a good working relationship with walls.  That extra push got his knees across the space, and he was on the move again.    
After a while, he came to a vent in the chamber floor and looked down on the audience.  Shepard was in the front row with Krios, and she was like a kid on Christmas. Leaning forward, elbows on her knees, Shepard looked enthralled by whatever the current speaker was saying. Krios just looked indifferent like always but when he looked over at Shepard he smiled, even if only for a moment.  Vega looked like he was about to fall asleep.  Alenko was playing dutiful Spectre.  It must have killed him that Krios was up there with Shepard, and not him.  
“Time to keep moving,” he said under his breath. Garrus was starting to get comfortable in the vents.  “I don’t know why people think this is such a big deal, I could do this all da-“  
Suddenly the vent gave out from under Garrus, and his hand and arm crashed through one of the weak sections.  His face hit the metal bottom, hard.  He attempted to use his other hand to push himself back up but this one just went crashing through, too. Garrus wriggled from side to side, attempting to get enough momentum to get one of his arms back up into the vent and back up.   
After a few minutes of wriggling and flapping his arms, he managed to get a solid grasp on the vent once more.  Quickly, he backed up to the nearest four way split, and chose a different path.  This one didn’t fare any better.  About twenty metres in, he felt the shaft begin to give, and backed off immediately.  As he did, though, he smacked his fringe against the top of the shaft, causing another loud noise to echo through the area.   
“I should probably go back now,” he said to himself.  Backing up once more, he changed direction and moved back towards the bathroom.  As he passed the opening once more, he was amused to see that Shepard hadn’t moved, but that Vega was now absolutely asleep, and probably snoring, and that Alenko looked absolutely peeved by this.   
Finally, Garrus made it back to the bathroom.  
Third bump in the road: how to exit a vent without spilling oneself onto the bathroom floor.   
Garrus pushed himself out of the vent, bracing himself on the toilet seat.  Just as he was pulling his legs out, his hand slipped into the bowl and his face crashed into the wall.  This was not a good day for Garrus’ face, but he had to admit that it had seen worse.   
Once Garrus managed to get his legs out of the vent, he replaced the cover, screwing it back into place, then collapsed, exhausted, on the toilet.  He sat for a few minutes, moving his jaw around, hoping it was just in pain, and not dislocated.  Mandibles could be a real pain to set after a dislocation.  
Eventually, he got to his feet.  Garrus was glad to finally be out of those hellish vents.  Cursing every Drell whose name he could remember (but mostly Krios), he made a silent vow to himself to never speak of that to anyone, nor would he ever attempt it again.  He unlocked the bathroom door and pushed it open to find himself face to face with a Hanar.  
"Greetings," the hangar said, its body luminescing.  
"Uh, hi," Garrus replied, rubbing his aching neck.  "You, uh.  Been out here long?"  
"This one was in the ceremony when this one heard sounds coming from the ventilation shaft overhead.  It is this one's duty as a specter to protect the citizens and military personnel who are here.  If there's one thing this one excels at, it's navigating ventilation shafts.”  
"Show off," Garrus muttered under his breath.  “Ah, yeah- I-heard a lot of noise, you know.  Coming from in there...You must be Blasto?"  
“Yes, This one's name is Blasto.  And you are friends with Shepard.  This one considers Shepard to be an impressive human."  
"You and me both," Garrus replied.  Suddenly, he was struck with the reality that he was standing in a bathroom stall, having a conversation with the galaxy’s most famous Hanar Spectre.  It was too good to be true.  He’d definitely have to brag about this to Shepard.  “I’m going to… get back to the ceremony, then."  
“This one is going to make sure that there is not a threat lurking in the ventilation network.”  
Garrus looked at the Hanar for a moment before stepping out of the stall and waving Blasto through the open door.    
“Be careful in there, the guy sounded like a real badass.”  
“This one thanks you for your concern.”  Blasto closed the stall door behind himself and Garrus walked over to the sink.    
He washed his hands and threw water on his face with a sigh.  He wouldn’t be able to avoid a black eye this time.   
Defeated, Garrus walked back to the ceremony and took his seat next to Alenko, patting Vega on the shoulder to wake him up.  The remainder of the ceremony passed without incident.  Surprisingly, Vakarian managed to remain awake for the few remaining speakers.   
After the reception Shepard, Alenko, and Vega were standing in line to meet Blasto.  Krios and Vakarian stood at a distance, allowing the three their moment to meet a ‘hero.’    
It was Thane who spoke first.   
“Get it out of your system?”  His expression remained indifferent, though Garrus thought he detected a hint of amusement in his voice.  
“You… heard?” Garrus’ voice sounded disappointed.  He was really hoping that this could remain his own personal failure.  
“Everyone heard,” Thane said simply. Yep.  Definitely amusement.  
“I don’t know how you do it,” Garrus said.  “I figured that if you could do it, someone as clearly superior as I am would have no problem.”  
“The key,” the drell replied, “is not to fall through the floor.”   
The pair stood in silence until they were joined by Shepard and the others.  Garrus was ready to be rid of that planet and onto the nearest one that had dextro-friendly alcohol.  
Copious amounts of dextro-friendly alcohol.  
  
And possibly an ice pack.


End file.
